Business savvy

January 23, 2007

Always helps to have someone looking over the should of anyone who has discretion over money. Might have kept Farhad “Fred” Monem, once one of the smart guys who kept costs down (was he one of the “smartest guys in the room”?) at the Oregon Department of Corrections.

Instead, court documents say he he was caught with $450,000 in kickback money and other goodies from businesses he’d been dealing with.

The spotlight in the Portland news coverage on this has been on Monem (who, we should remind, has been accused, not convicted). But an equally bright light ought to shine on the food wholesalers who were the other part of the equation. It might even give a moment’s reflection to the backers of extensive privatizing; Monem’s role as a state executive may have made the situation easier to catch.